GREAT DAYS ENDED

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 626, 1 April 1929, Page 13

GREAT DAYS ENDED

FAMOUS CAFE CLOSED WHERE GENIUS FOREGATHERED Every visitor to Berlin with any pretence to literary acquaintanceship or bohemian proclivities used to make his way to a certain cafe with large glass windows which stood prominently on a corner of the Kurfurstendamm, a broad street with a double line of trees enclosing a bridle path and tall houses. These houses —elegant apartments above and equally elegant shops ; below —are always the butt of the artistic Berliner, for they were built in the period of over decoration arm pompous prosperity following on the war of IS7O. As their exact opposite stood the artists’ cafe. It was called the Cafe des Westens. and there is scarcely a name later prominent in the literary, artistic or theatrical world of Berlin during the last twenty years that has not been heard in its smoke-laden ; atmosphere. Agitated goups, shaking back manes of long hair, have sat disputing in wild battles about the future of poetry. Reputations (literary, of course! have been made and broken. Many a young genius, whose one cup of coffee was lasting him the whole ! evening, has heard his glory acclaimed j here for the one and only time. The . ! popular name of the cafe among the j ! initiated was Cafe Grossenwahn, or ! Swelled Head. ♦ | i As the city grew ever morq toward ) j the west and prices rose in proportion, i rent.became too heavy for the kind of ! patronage the cafe bad hitherto en- ; : joyed, and, making the best of .an ac- , ; complished fact, the cafe was turned | into a cabaret. Down below the old j regime went on, although less spon- 1 taneous than before. There were still ' those who arrived from bed at 4 j o'clock in the afternoon and sat at j their table till 4 o'clock the next morn- , ing. Max Reinhardt, Hans Heins ; Ewers, Oskar Kokoschka, the futurist painter; Ernst von Wolzogen, the Aus- > trian wit, and Roda-Roda are a few of the names. After the war the decline was gradual, but certain. The literary cafe was no more and, robbed of its j character, the attraction was dead, j Now even in name the famous old Cafe Westens is no more. ! One of the famous figures was a | little humpbacked waiter with red j hair, whose office was to bring the | patrons whatever newspaper they I wished. And it was a special function: (•of this cafe that it provided the papers of all countries. The tireless | little waiter has figured in many a • sketch, written or drawn.